Founders can’t stop cheating on their partners with their companies

This article - written in collaboration with Jamila Mewes - was recently published on Sifted. Thanks to Tom Nugent and Amy Lewin at Sifted!

We all know that founder who missed their wedding anniversary because of a client emergency. The one who takes investor calls during date night. The one whose partner has learned to accept that passion and dedication that used to be theirs now belongs to a company.

We've spent decades in rooms with founders, one of us helping them build better companies (Julius), the other helping them save their marriages (Jamila). Time and again, neglected spouses have described their partners as “cheating on me with the company.” 

The affair starts innocently enough: A founder falls in love with an idea, pours their heart into it and nurtures it from nothing. The rewards are incredible, and the spouse is happy to see their partner brought to life by a new passion. But soon the new relationship demands total commitment, constant attention and unwavering loyalty — not just from the founder, but from everyone in their lives. The company becomes an extension of the founder’s identity—not a separate entity they can clock out from at 6pm.

"It's different with my company," one founder told Julius during a coaching session. "When something urgent comes up, I can't just say, I'll deal with it tomorrow like you can in a normal job. This is my baby." He paused, realising what he'd just said while his wife was home with their actual baby.

The identity fusion between founder and company runs deeper than some marriages.  Here's what makes it particularly toxic: unlike traditional affairs, this one comes with social praise. Investors celebrate the "hustle". Founders trade stories about sleeping in the office like badges of honor — rather than regrettable time spent away from their partners and families. In startup culture, the more you sacrifice your personal life for the company, the more dedicated you appear. We often forget that there is someone at home also sacrificing for the cause.

The Partner's Reality: Life as #2

"I used to wait up for him," one founder's wife told Jamila. "Now I just go to bed when I hear him say 'one quick email.' We both know it's never quick." 

We’ve heard this story countless times. The partner who learns to sleep through the blue light of a laptop at midnight; the one who knows that "emergency investor call" trumps anniversary plans every time.

Here's what they don't tell you in startup success stories. Behind every founder wrestling with product-market fit, there's often a partner wrestling with their place in the relationship's priority stack.

The "always-on" affair isn't just about missed dinners. It's about the mental real estate the company occupies. Even when founders are physically present, they're often emotionally logged into Slack. One partner said:: "I don't mind sharing him with the company. I mind that the company never learned to share."

Founders aren’t thriving under these conditions. One founder told Julius recently: "I make decisions all day that affect 50 people's livelihoods. Then my partner and I must align on our kid's education, mortgage and future. There's no off switch for being the person everyone depends on."

When a company consumes a founder, someone still needs to track dentist appointments, plan birthday parties, coordinate with the in-laws, and manage the endless mental checklist of running a household. That burden falls disproportionately on female partners, already carrying the weight of traditional gender expectations. One founder's wife said:: "He's disrupting an industry while I'm disrupting our daughter's fever at 3am. Guess which one gets the TechCrunch article?”

Another founder confessed to Julius: "I could never do what we've achieved if my wife wasn't willing to be flexible. She's brilliant in her own right, but she chose to create space for my ambitions." The guilt in his voice was palpable.

How to stop cheating…

The shift founders need to make isn't about better time management or delegation — it's about reimagining the relationship between their personal connections and professional ambitions. This shift requires understanding the levels of relationships in our lives. It starts within ourselves, extends to our loved ones and only then flows into our life's work. When we honour this order — rather than inverting it for the sake of business — we create a generative effect that enhances every aspect of our lives, including our companies' performance.

Your relationship and business aren't competing priorities — they're interconnected, and investing in your relationship isn't a distraction from success, it's the foundation that enables it. Both domains need different approaches. You can't delegate presence or pivot out of intimacy the way you might in business.

…at home

Create sacred couple time — even an hour every week — and defend it with the same ferocity you'd protect an important investor meeting. When emergencies arise (and they will), explicitly renegotiate this time rather than simply canceling it. Reframe relationship time as foundational to wise leadership—creating the grounding and perspective that leads to more thoughtful decisions and sustainable vision. Understand that presence with their partners cultivates the very qualities their business needs: patience for complexity, emotional intelligence, and the ability to see beyond immediate urgencies to what truly matters.

Break the digital tether by establishing technology boundaries — a designated drawer or basket where phones remain during couple time. The notifications will wait; your relationship cannot. Start small if necessary — even 30 uninterrupted minutes can begin repairing connection.

Disrupt the guilt-compensation cycle where neglect leads to grand gestures (expensive gifts, elaborate vacations) instead of consistent presence. Your partner needs your attention more than your apologies or compensatory gestures.

Show active prioritization with visible choices that demonstrate when business takes second place — taking calls in another room so your partner doesn't hear every crisis, or occasionally letting non-critical emails wait until morning. These visible choices speak louder than promises.

Finally, seek relationship support before you're in crisis mode. The most successful founders apply the same preventive mindset to their relationships that they do to business problems — addressing small issues before they become existential threats.

…and at work

On the business side, build infrastructure that reduces your operational load through strong leadership teams. Grow managers who can run all business functions — not just perform tasks — and allow them to make decisions without your daily involvement. Your 'operating system' could be a founder associate or chief of staff, filtering what's urgent and protecting your calendar based on clear priorities, which include relationship commitments, for instance.

Have explicit conversations with business partners about relationship boundaries. Establish a 'relationship protection pact' with cofounders, where certain personal events (anniversaries, vacations) are inviolable, except for predefined crisis scenarios. A team protocol should also block personal commitments on shared calendars with the same importance as board meetings, and differentiate true emergencies from important-but-can-wait situations.

Define what success looks like in both your business and relationship, and update these expectations regularly (read: quarterly), just as you would your business strategy. How you define success is individual. We’ve seen vision boards with pictures (this works for Julius) as well as hard-core relationship OKRs. Have brief weekly check-ins (Sundays work well) and more comprehensive quarterly ”retrospectives” (read: date night!) with your partner, timing them around your business planning cycles. When you are in an intense business period — for example, fundraising — you are effectively creating relationship debt. Make this explicit and plan how to repay this with focused connection time after the intense period.

Remember: A thriving relationship isn't a luxury you earn after success—it's the foundation that makes sustainable success possible. The most successful founders aren't the ones who sacrifice everything for their business—they're the ones who understand that personal relationships and professional ambitions can strengthen each other rather than compete.

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